Billionaires: The Hero. Maisey Yates
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Название: Billionaires: The Hero
Автор: Maisey Yates
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Контркультура
Серия: Mills & Boon M&B
isbn: 9781474095075
isbn:
She pressed her lips together. “I was never told about this condition. I swear, I did not know.”
His gaze raked her face. She squared her shoulders under its hard, cold weight. “What are the terms in the document?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, do we have to live together? Are there any other stipulations attached to the marriage?”
She shook her head. “That’s all the document said.”
He lapsed into silence. She curled up in her corner of the seat, blood pounding against her temples. What if he abandoned their agreement? Left her here for Silvio to punish? She had no money, no possessions, nothing to get away.
Long moments passed. When she was teetering on the edge of complete and irreversible panic, he turned to her, icy control back in his face. “What was your plan after we left? Where were you intending on having me take you?”
She shook her head, her mouth trembling. “I—I don’t have one. I just left my fiancé at the altar, Nate. I—I’m—”
In shock.
“Okay,” he said finally after a long moment. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to get on my jet, we’re going to fly to Capri where I have business to attend to, and we will sort this out on the way.”
“Capri?”
His mouth tightened. “That’s the destination on offer.”
She closed her eyes. What choice did she have? Her first course of action had to be to get out of here. Then she could regroup.
The miles flew by and then they were at the airport, an expedited process seeing them quickly through security. The official asked for her passport. Mina handed it to him and smiled when he gave it back. Nate gripped her elbow in a tight hold and started walking her through the doors toward the tarmac. Fast.
“Keep your head down,” he muttered. “And keep walking.”
Her reflexive action, of course, was to turn her head. Two men in dark suits stood arguing with the guards covering the security checkpoint. Her breath caught in her throat.
“Dio mio. Nate—”
“Put your head down,” he barked, “and walk. He isn’t going to touch you. I promise.”
She kept walking, her knees threatening to give way beneath her. Nate slid his arm around her waist and propelled her forward. Up the steps to the jet they went, the doors closing behind them. Nate told her to sit down and buckle up, then walked into the cockpit to say something to the pilot.
In minutes they were cleared to leave by the control tower. Mina had never felt so light-headed in all her life as they taxied down the runway and took off, lifting sharply as a gust of wind buoyed them higher.
Dread consumed her. “It was Silvio, wasn’t it?” She turned to look at Nate as her stomach rose and fell with the ascending aircraft. “Who sent those men?”
NATE SURVEYED MINA’S panicked expression, her fear as she curled her hands around the armrests, knuckles white, overriding the fury he felt at his now excessively complicated life. The fury he felt toward the abusive man who had just tried to come after her.
“I suspect so,” he said grimly. “I will find out for certain. But there’s no need to worry. He can’t touch you now.”
Her eyes flashed. “What if he sends his men after me? Pasquale could give him all our information.”
“Then he will know I am not a man to be messed with. That it’s fruitless to come after you.”
“You’re only one man. You saw the men he sent.”
“He won’t get past my security detail.”
“Security detail?”
“I’m a rich man, Mina. It’s a prerequisite.”
She sat back in her chair, looking so chalk white he feared she might pass out. When the attendant came around to offer them drinks he asked for two glasses of brandy and put one in front of Mina.
“I don’t drink liquor.”
“Today you do.” He nodded toward the glass. “Drink. It’ll help your nerves.”
She stared dubiously at the amber liquid. Took a little sip and wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like it.”
“Keep drinking.”
He leaned back against the seat, resting his brandy on his thigh. His temporary wife was now his wife for a year, a year, a state of being he had never once contemplated entering into nor wanted. That was if he chose to go through with the deal he and Mina had made, a vastly different one than he had signed on for.
He took in the stunning, innocent creature who was now his wife. Her disheveled hair, streaked makeup and worry lined face. His cynical side suggested she might have known about the year-long clause in the will, perhaps had seen an opportunity for escape in him that had been sweetened by the idea of a rich husband. But his gut told him that wasn’t the case. Mina hadn’t even blinked when he’d said the word prenup. She’d looked as frozen, as in shock, as he’d been when Pasquale Tomei had unveiled that condition. It could not have been manufactured.
With that stipulation, the key to her escape had been stripped from her, the ability to start a life away from her clearly uncaring mother and abusive ex-fiancé. He had been the one walking into the middle of things offering solutions. And now he had a much bigger one to find.
What was he going to do with a wife? With Mina? He couldn’t just dump her in Capri and tell her to contact him when she could sell him the ring. Marchetti was too likely to get to her there.
She needed his protection. He needed that ring to show Giovanni before he died. To give him a chance to reconnect with the past. Which meant his wife was now his responsibility. For a year.
“When you talked about obtaining your freedom,” he said, “what did you envision yourself doing?”
“I speak multiple languages. I thought I would follow in my father’s footsteps. Become a businesswoman.”
“Do you have a business degree?”
“No.” She pressed her lips together, her dark gaze dropping away from his. “I went to a finishing school in France.”
A finishing school. Did those still exist? “And your father. What business was he in?”
“He was the CEO of our family chocolate company—Felicia. It was one of the biggest in Europe before my mother sold it to an American conglomerate.”
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